EASTHAMPTON – Mayor Nicole LaChapelle asked the city council on Wednesday to consider adopting a change in how health care plans for city employees and retirees are negotiated – a move union leaders say strips them of their collective bargaining rights.
LaChapelle said the move would “ensure consistent health care coverage for all our municipal employees while maintaining a prudent municipal practice,” at the Jan. 16 city council meeting.
Under state law, municipalities can adopt a stipulation that allows for health insurance design changes – such as co-pays and deductibles – with all city employees rather than with individual departments or towns.
LaChapelle said the proposal could create a “smooth, clean process” to negotiate around upcoming changes to how benefits are structured, increases in premiums and changes to co-payments for doctors visits. The city must approve a new health insurance plan ahead of the next fiscal year.
If the city council were to approve the proposal, LaChapelle said Friday that, “bargaining rights become more equitable for all municipal employees because pay plan employees cannot organize, and rarely receive merit raises … and retirees aren’t able to negotiate the amount of monetary benefits.”
Municipal employees of seven departments in Easthampton – such as teachers, police, firefighters, and public works employees – are members of the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust, which includes 11,000 active and retired municipal employees in Hampshire, Franklin, Hampden and Worcester counties.
“Right now, we have the ability to collectively bargain under Massachusetts laws with the city around all conditions of employment, which includes health insurance,” Nellie Taylor Donohue, president of the Easthampton Teacher’s Association, said on Thursday.
“When this law is passed in any city, the rights of labor unions to negotiate with a city around health insurance are taken from the collective bargaining setting and brought to an incredibly diminished process,” Donohue said.
The law would require negotiations between the city and a public employees committee, which would be made up of representatives from each union as well as a retiree representative, according to Susan Shillue, president of Cook & Company Insurance Services, the city’s legal consultant.
If an agreement cannot be reached within 30 days, negotiations would go before a three-person state review panel to decide whether the city’s plan is favorable compared to the Group Insurance Commission’s standard.
If the stipulation in the law is not approved, “there is an administraive burden to re-open negotiations with every union individually and reach that agreement in time to meet the plan design rate shift,” LaChapelle said.
Donohue said she would like to see the city council reject the proposition, which was echoed by other public speakers at Wednesday’s city council meeting.
Ben Taylor of Main Street said he “strongly urged” the council to vote no on the adoption.
Bill Simmons, who served 28 years in the Easthampton Fire Department, said he urged the council to vote no and recalled how his wife’s insurance covered him and nine surgeries he had.
“If we hadn’t had the health insurance plan that my wife was carrying through the school department … it would’ve devastated our family,” Simmons said.
Jason Dunham, president of the Easthampton firefighter’s union, said the proposal to adopt the law is “premature,” adding that the move would take away agreements that were made while bargaining in good faith with the city.
The city council voted to send the proposition to its finance subcomitte for further review on Jan 23. at 6 p.m.